For more information on Titan see my Titan Home Page.
The very short summary is that Aaron Fuegi won both the multiplayer event and the two player event. (He also has done writeups of his experience in both the two player and multiplayer events.)
I'd also like to thank Aki for his present to me of his Titan counter set.
Below is essentially the report I turned into Don for use in the yearbook.
Aaron Fuegi became the second player to win the Titan multiplayer event the same year as he won the Titan two player event. (David desJardins did this in 2005.)
In the final, first out was Rich Atwater. His titan got trapped and he withdrew rather than give his points to one of two other players depending on whether he moved his titan legion or not. The game ended when David desJardins rolled a 6 and had a choice of attacking Brian Sutton's titan legion, Aaron Fuegi's titan legion or biding his time. David's titan legion consisted of titan(12), 2 rangers, 2 cyclops plus an outside angel to call. Brian's consisted of ttan(12), angel, 2 warlocks, lion, ranger. Aaron's consisted of titan(8), 2 giants, 2 unicorns, warlock, warbear. David decided to attack Brian. David started out with poor luck early in the battle. He was unable to kill a warlock with 12 dice which delayed his angel by a round. Later he needed 4 more hits with an angel to finish off a lion and only got 3, allowing for a recruit. At this point David made a deal with Brian to concede if David only closed with his titan (leaving out a cyclops) and killed Brian's titan. (Some ethics disucsion occurred while the deal was being made and implemented.) David's titan killed Brian's. After some thought, Brian struck back at David's titan and slew it, making Aaron the winner. David won the roll off to take second. It was noted later, that give the high likelyhood of a mutual with the two powerful titans, that delaying until after Aaron's titan was slain (he was in move compulsion), may have been a better option.
In semi-final 1, David desJardins had some poor recruiting with his angel legion and had the legion made ineffective when he attacked a legion where there were two rangers, where he expected two trolls. So at one point he risked a one third hit by Michael Pustilnik, because he felt he really needed to get a dragon to be in the game. Jonathan Barnes was forced to make an attack with his titan legion on one of Michael's that he didn't really want to, but managed to win the battle. David eventaully was able to get his dragon by using blockers to keep the legion safe for a few turns. Michael got titan teleport with his titan legion in the woods. David then attacked with a legion with two hydras. Michael needed to use his titan early in the battle. After taking damage from a hydra and rangers he tried to hide his titan, but David was able to reach it and ended the battle with 3 angels and a hydra. Once David got a colossus in his titan legion, that combined with titan teleport gave him a decisive lead and Jonathan and Bruce Rae withdrew.
In semi-final 2 Dan Strock was hurt by a 7 on 7 attack in the mountains that failed, in part due to lack of rangers. He was eliminated by Akihisa Tabei in a 5 on 6 attack. Dan had a titan, 2 warbears and three trolls. Aki had an angel, some rangers and lions. The attack was in the brush and the trolls were not very effective in that terrain. Aki then split in an odd place and Aaron Fuegi could have killed his titan, but depending on the results may have been killed in turn by Bob Masso. As he rolled a 6, Aaron tower teleported to chase after Bob's titan as a safer alternative. Bob got a bad roll and his titan was trapped. Bob legions were worth a lot of points, giving Aaron titan teleport. Even though Aki had strengthened his titan legion by the time Aaron rolled a 6, the battle was a relatively easy win for Aaron.
In semi-final 3 Yoshiya Narita was first out after playing politely. Joe Harrison then withdrew after his situation became hopeless. After Brian got titan teleport, Jason Ley survived three turns as a weak titan. When Brian rolled a 6 the final battle was Titan(12) 2 serpents, 2 warlocks, gorgon, behemoth versus titan(9), 2 warlocks, 2 giants, 2 unicorns in the plains. It came down to titan on titan with Brian needing 9 hits in 21 dice and Jason needing 7 hits in 9 dice. Both happened, but Brian ended up winning the roll off.
In semi-final 4 David Finberg was affected by lack of sleep. He split in an unintended manner for his starting tower. And later missed a threat when teleporting to the tundra to get a warbear for two trolls which earned him an early exit from the game courtesy of Rich Atwater. Steve Koleszar tried to split run from Rich and only rolled a 1, which let Peg Meacham catch him. Rich then killed her angel legion and left with only one legion to Rich's 12, she resigned.
In preliminary game 5, Bob Masso won the final battle with only his titan left, and it had 9 out of 10 hits on it.
On a sadder note, Gerald Lientz who participated in the Titan tournment regularly for almost 15 years, missed this last WBC due to illness and passed away shortly afterward.
Fin Sem Pre Opp Opp Opp Opp Opp Opp Game
Name Ran Ran Ran 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Kil 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Kil Gam Gam Numbers
Fuegi, Aaron 1 3 7 2 0 0 0 7 7 7 3 0 25 28 3 3 9 20
des Jardins, David 2 1 1 4 1 1 0 13 19 17 8 0 67 68 6 8 13 15 27 28 31
Sutton, Brian 3 4 8 2 0 0 0 5 2 5 3 0 10 19 2 10 16
Atwater, Rich 4 2 4 2 2 0 0 8 6 16 11 0 24 50 4 4 7 18 25
Tabei, Akihisa 5 5 2 3 0 0 0 9 9 8 6 0 33 36 3 9 11 15
Ley, Jason 6 6 3 3 0 0 0 8 8 12 5 0 37 38 3 6 22 26
Barnes, Jonathan 7 7 11 1 2 0 0 4 23 16 7 0 78 58 6 1 6 8 15 17 21 23 26 28
Meacham, Peg 8 8 20 0 2 1 0 0 19 20 8 0 68 62 6 4 7 11 16 21 25 27 29
Finberg, David 9 9 6 2 0 2 0 6 13 10 8 0 44 51 4 8 19 23 27
Harrison, Joe 10 10 12 1 2 0 0 4 11 6 5 0 40 32 4 2 3 9 17
Rae, Bruce 11 11 14 1 1 2 0 3 13 16 7 0 49 61 5 4 7 12 19 24
Masso, Bob 12 12 18 1 0 2 0 4 21 13 11 0 75 63 6 5 9 14 22 24 27
Pustilnik, Michael 13 13 5 2 1 0 0 8 19 14 9 0 66 58 5 6 12 14 28 31
Strock, Dan 14 14 10 1 2 1 0 6 14 6 5 0 43 41 4 6 10 22 30
Koleszar, Steve 15 15 13 1 2 0 0 3 8 8 7 0 30 31 3 13 25 30
Narita, Yoshiya 16 16 16 1 1 0 0 3 19 15 14 0 66 66 6 4 8 12 16 20 24 30
Wines, Arthur 17 17 9 1 3 0 0 5 14 13 5 0 48 47 4 7 21 26 31
Wolff III, Bruno 18 18 15 1 1 1 0 6 4 6 4 0 17 22 3 2 5 18
Johnston, Tom 19 19 17 1 1 0 0 2 2 7 1 0 10 18 2 17 29
Vipperman, Jeremy 20 20 19 1 0 0 0 2 7 4 1 0 25 17 1 28
Lange, Ted 21 21 21 0 1 1 0 1 11 6 2 0 40 24 2 15 18
Northey, Rick 22 22 22 0 1 1 0 1 6 3 3 0 23 23 2 3 14
Romano, Greg 23 23 23 0 1 0 0 2 1 3 1 0 2 9 1 29
Berenbach, Marc 24 24 24 0 1 0 0 1 3 2 4 0 10 17 1 24
Hultgren, Gregory 25 25 25 0 1 0 0 0 3 1 0 0 10 9 1 20
Barnes, Daniel 26 26 26 0 1 0 0 0 2 3 2 0 10 8 1 2
Rennert, David 27 27 27 0 1 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 4 8 1 1
Gathmann, Pete 28 28 28 0 0 2 0 0 6 11 2 0 23 26 2 25 30
Pollock, Jason 29 29 29 0 0 1 0 1 3 3 1 0 8 14 1 16
Hultgren, Micah 30 30 30 0 0 1 0 0 11 5 10 0 40 35 3 14 19 22
Krueger, Chuck 31 31 31 0 0 1 0 0 3 2 1 0 9 11 1 11
Rennert, Phil 32 32 32 0 0 1 0 0 2 4 1 0 10 8 1 2
Lange, Alexander 33 33 33 0 0 0 0 0 6 7 3 0 27 18 2 3 18
McCulloch, Sean 34 34 34 0 0 0 0 0 5 3 4 0 21 15 2 5 10
Meldrom, Adam 35 35 35 0 0 0 0 0 5 3 1 0 16 9 1 13
Hurda, Al 36 36 36 0 0 0 0 0 4 5 2 0 13 17 2 1 11
Platnick, David 37 37 37 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 2 0 10 10 1 23
Leatherdale, John 38 38 38 0 0 0 0 0 1 4 1 0 4 9 1 29
The beginning of the Titan 2 tournament is always a time of excitement. The players draw randomly to see who will become their first round opponent, waiting for the occasional straggler who is not able to make it right at 10 am. The boards are set up, the clash begins. There is also the contingency extended to a few players who contact the GM ahead of time to arrange a late start, when the 10 am time slot conflicts with another favorite game.
The field included seven former champions. Their games are seeded into the tournament bracket so that the earliest meeting between two champions would take place in the quarterfinals. Five of those champions made it to the quarters, and each quarterfinal winner was a former champion, the first time that the semifinals included no unseeded player.
In the only quarterfinal that featured champion against champion, the contest resulted in a mutual death of the two titans. Dan Strock won the tiebreaker over David desJardins. Brian Sutton won his quarter in thirteen minutes over our good friend from Tokyo, Akihisa Tabei. Aaron Fuegi took a bit longer, running up his score steadily against Tom Johnston. After Aaron earned Titan teleport and an archangel in consecutive battles, Tom bowed to the inevitable and withdrew.
It is worthwhile to mention Aaron's second round game against Art Wines. I happened by the board at a critical moment. Aaron's unwounded 6 high titan had moved between an angel and a ranger. With help from other creatures, both had been eliminated but had yet to strike back. On another part of the battle land, it appeared as if an unwounded lion would become free and be able to reach the titan, so Aaron spilled two hits to that lion rather than kill another lion which would remain engaged. On the strike back, the angel and ranger combined to hit the titan five times, leaving Aaron one hit from elimination. As expected, the lion killed the Cyclops pinning it down and ran to engage the titan. Needing only a single hit, Art's throw did not include a 5 or a 6 and the lion quickly expired. This is unquestionably a game which includes chance, and the eventual winner must not only be good but also lucky. The probability simplifies to two thirds to the fifth power, or 32/243 for the lion to fail to get at least one hit. And there is also a good chance that the angel and the ranger with ten dice might have killed the titan.
Aaron's semifinal win over Brian included only two battles, and was over quickly. By contrast, the semifinal won by Sean McCulloch over Dan featured twelve battles won by each player before the final battle. Sean's big score out of those battles was only 92 points, but Dan's was even lower, scoring 66 points in his largest win. Neither player topped 400 points to achieve teleport. It is unusual for that many battles to take place without a single 100+ score.
In the final, Sean made an early tactical error by splitting the gargoyles from his titan stack before they had recruited a Cyclops. Shortly after that, Aaron entered a tower with his angel stack, recruiting a guardian. After splitting, he teleported to the tower above Sean's titan stack to recruit a second guardian. When Sean moved, Aaron rolled another 6 and chose to teleport to a plains hex immediately in front of Sean's titan, recruiting ranger with ranger. Sean had nowhere to go. His titan would be blocked forever unless he attacked. Sean had a warlock and a ranger, but because of the earlier split, still had two centaurs and two lions. Not very hopeful, even with the angel to summon. Nevertheless, he attacked as the best option, and the result was the expected outcome. Aaron became a back-to-back champion, with a great deal of skill and a little bit of luck.